Thirteen weeks ago Dale McDowell made the long haul up I-75, past Cleveland and Athens and Sweetwater. Through Knoxville, then London and Richmond and Lexington, finally the southern fringes of the sprawling Cincinnati metroplex. Then … across the wide river to Ohio. | Complete World 100 coverage

Ohio was very good to McDowell all those weeks ago. He and Team Dillon Racing carried $100,000 back home from Eldora Speedway, scoring an impressive win on June 7 in the 20th Dirt Late Model Dream. Now MORE

The pace slows on U.S. 24 as you ease into town, eyes surveying the landscape. Fairbury is just one of many pretty towns along this highway that lies razor-straight across the Illinois prairie. Another speed zone, another blinking traffic signal, another set of churches and schools and municipal buildings and a Casey’s General Store.

But Fairbury is different. Special. Somewhere, off to the south, just the other side of an idyllic grid of neat lawns and well-kept homes, is an old fairgrounds. MORE

It is a busy afternoon in Oakwood, Ill., and Bobby Pierce is looking at a looming deadline. It’s the kind of deadline a lot of 17-year-olds fret over, involving an intensely challenging subject.

Algebra.

Pierce is one of the country’s hottest Dirt Late Model racers, a growing force that shows no sign of abating. He’s already won 10 races and is on track for a phenomenal season, perhaps the greatest season in history for someone not yet 18 years old.

Pierce has little time to bask in his MORE